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Social Media News | The Professor’s Pick

Social media behemoth Facebook has invested heavily in traditional advertising during the first quarter of 2015. Having spent just £16,000 in this area during the whole of last year, the latest figures estimate that so far in 2015, Facebook’s spending has reached a sizeable £6 million.

The reason for the shift has been largely attributed to the ‘Friendship’ television ads (£3 million) released by Facebook earlier this year, as well as the use of old-fashioned billboards at the London Underground.

This increase in traditional spend – particularly by a company that encourages businesses to advertise online – has raised eyebrows. However, Google, Apple, Amazon and a number of other web-based players have already embraced more traditional advertising methods for brand-building campaigns.

Facebook has declined to comment on the reasons behind the change in its marketing approach. However, it is predicted that Facebook will emerge as one of the major advertisers over the next few years.

New LinkedIn app urges users to share employer content

Professional networking site LinkedIn has launched a new standalone app designed to encourage users to share content from their employers.

With more and more businesses using social media to promote content, ‘Elevate’ will help companies and employees to curate and share via social networks. Crucially, Elevate will also allow businesses to measure the impact of this activity.

The app was created in response to figures that suggest that content shared by employees attracts more engagement than that shared by businesses alone. Elevate will provide employees with a ready stream of relevant content while using intelligent scheduling capabilities to ensure it gets shared when their networks are most active.

To date, Elevate is currently being trialled by a select group of businesses and is expected to be widely available later this year. To find out more about Elevate visit http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/04/13/elevate/

With LinkedIn acquiring online education site Lynda.com for $1.5bn only last week, it seems that the platform is upping its game when it comes to empowering its professional members.

Twitter suspends third-party data licensing

Twitter has announced that it is to stop third-party resellers from accessing its data. The move will see Twitter cutting out the middlemen and using its in-house big data analytics team to build direct relationships with Twitter data customers.

The decision has been met with a mixed response. While some commentators believe it will open the way for increased collaboration between businesses and Twitter, others fear that it may stifle the development of new tools and techniques.

Chris Moody, Twitter’s vice president for strategy, said: “In the future, every significant business decision will have Twitter data as an input, because why wouldn’t you?”

In 2014, Twitter raised approximately10% of its total revenues from data licensing. This latest decision highlights that it is keen to increase this even further.Snapchat introduces dynamic filters

In a bid to usurp Instagram at California’s popular Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival, Snapchat has released a new style of geofilters. Snapchat’s filters take the form of an overlay that users add to their photos and videos.

The filters, which will change throughout the day depending on which band is playing at the time, will encourage users to share snaps of each band they see. Only accessible in the geofenced area, the filters are likely to appeal to Snapchat’s predominantly younger user base and their desire to share unique experiences.

Snapchat is no stranger to capitalising on public events, having rolled out its ‘Our Story’ feature last year. Available during major public events, Our Story shows a collection of curated public images and videos. In addition, Snapchat also sells Our Story sponsorship, providing advertisers with the opportunity to slice this crowd-sourced content with their own branding and messages.